


always and forever, but just sometimes (maybe never.)

by peppermintyero



Category: Black Mirror
Genre: Gen, an eventual (and questionable) happy ending, mild stefan/colin as things progress but the canon kitty/colin is there to begin with, stefan's dad is so lost fdjkdf, the friend from the future is also a big character but it's confusing i guess kfjdgfd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 22:17:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17333402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppermintyero/pseuds/peppermintyero
Summary: stefan used to paper his walls in endless diagrams and sketches about bandersnatch, think about killing his dad and have dreams involving program and control studies and monsters from books.stefan now papers his walls with the useless information about a year that he’ll be fifty four in, stays up late whispering to his computer screen and dreams of walking down the streets of london with a portable MP3 player and shoes that lit up.he’s not sure what’s worse.ORhow stefan butler learned to stop worrying and love his new friend from the future.





	always and forever, but just sometimes (maybe never.)

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this is the first time i’ve published a fic that isn’t supergirl so im a little nervous but i loved bandersnatch so hard and really wanted to go further into the whole ‘friend from the future’ thing.
> 
> so this is yet in a verse where stefan did everything leading up to the ‘what the hell is netflix’ thing and the two basically settled on not redoing any timelines and keeping the choices to a minimum. but like we’re got twist and turns and revelations and everything. ive got this planned as a multi-chap but it depends on reception and my own laziness ekjfkj.
> 
> enjoy! 
> 
> (also, the title is from ‘question’ by fat night. a band which i LOVE so please listen to them please lol)

Stefan had tried to imagine what it looked in real life so many times.

He’d sketched it out and held it up like a child presenting a drawing but he always got the same answer.

_No, smaller_.

“How can a phone be any bloody smaller?!” he scoffed, flipping the paper over to take another look at what he’d drawn.

Apparently he’d gotten the basic look down pretty early, but he was struggling to get it work with the stick man he’d used as a height reference.

Scrunching up his nose, Stefan looked back up at his computer screen.

“Are you sure this isn’t a joke? It looks ridiculous, it’s just a rectangle with a circle at the bottom. Where are the buttons and the speaker?”

He didn’t wait for a reply, but fumbled around his desk to find a push-pin.

“I’m not doing it again, this is as good as it gets,” Stefan muttered, pinning the paper drawing up on one of the few blank spaces he could find on his wall.

Over the months, the pages and pages of flow charts and pathways had been thrown away.

They weren’t needed anymore, Bandersnatch was done. It was out. It got 4 stars. Stefan had to remind himself of that sometimes. On the days were he wakes up after dreaming of Tuckersoft making the game for him or getting 5 stars but…

No, that prat from Micro Play gave him 4 stars.

Nearly a 5.

More like a 4.5 really.

Not that Stefan was pissed off about that.

( _“It truly is a new frontier for video gaming. And I have the feeling that Bandersnatch is going to mark the starting point for a new wave game scene. 4 stars, excellent and experimental."_

_“Oh, well that sounded like a little bit more than a 4.”_

_“Only because some elements did get a little confusing with the constant back and forth between paths, but you’re right, I did have real fun with this one and if Butler keeps up the work, we’ll definitely see some 5 out of 5 level games.”_ )

There has a knock from the door, quiet enough so that it didn’t seem intruding, but loud enough to startle Stefan from his thoughts.

His head snapped over to the screen.

Nothing.

Stefan took in a sharp breath through his nose.

Fuck, he hated these.

After Stefan had the seizure from being made to do speed with Colin and Kitty, they’d tried to work out a system. Because some of these choices were not working.

And they’d both made the executive decision to not play with time any more.

So they couldn’t let Stefan die.

Stefan got a say in things like this.

And he knew how to resist some of the choices he didn’t like.

But he hadn’t chosen anything in so long. Choosing was fucking terrifying.

There was another knock, followed by a voice.

“Stefan? Can I come in?” Dad. Fuck

“Once second!” he called, frantically searching for something.

Nothing.

Nothing explained why he was arguing with himself at midnight.

Again.

Then his body felt hot all over.

He’d taken too long.

The choice wasn’t his anymore.

His body, not stiff, yet not his own, lied down on the bed and Stefan…

Wait.

His eyes widened as he shoved his hand down the front of his pyjama shorts just as his dad opened the door which has jammed slightly as it warped in the colder weather.

The silence was icy.

His dad made direct eye contact, probably too shocked to look anywhere else.

Stefan blinked rapidly, looking up at the ceiling.

Up at that poster of Grace Jones’ A One Man Show that Kitty had given him from work.

His dad nodded once, and then the door shut slowly and the second Stefan heard his father’s footsteps, he leap off the bed.

“What the fuck was that?!” Stefan’s voice was extremely quiet, but so high pitched with the pure anger and confusion he was feeling.

_Better than what you were going to do. Which was nothing._

Stefan collapsed back into his chair, head spinning.

“And the thing you chose was that I was talking to Grace-bleeding-Jones as I jerked off? Dad already thinks I’m a bloody queer and Grace Jones is hardly the kind of girl people jerk off to,” he hissed.

The screen was black for a beat and then-

_Aren’t you?_

_A queer that is, if that’s the word you want to use?_

Stefan didn’t answer. He never did answer those kinds of questions.

He knew Colin and Kitty were okay with all that stuff and that Kitty had a girl in Woking that she sent letters too but Stefan wasn’t Colin or Kitty.

He wasn’t even thinking about dating right now, he had more games to make.

Ripping out a new sheet of paper from the notebook next to him, Stefan attempted to change the subject.

“So what does Grace Jones look like in 2019? She’s still alive, right?”

* * *

It was hard at first to get his head around the idea that there was someone watching him always.

Who was there when he slept, who could watch him shower, who knew about Mum and Rabbit.

Someone who had lived out parts of Stefan’s life and then promptly erased them.

And Stefan didn’t even know their name. 

"So, I was thinking,” Stefan started the second he stepped into his bedroom, back from therapy, “that I could use all this,” he gestured to his wall and the subsequent papers, “for the game. The new game.”

He unpinned a list titled ‘music 21st century’ and moved the monitor towards his bed before sitting, cross-legged.

  

“I wouldn’t use it all, I know that I have to keep this stuff between us but I was thinking about a game that incorporates time travel. Travelling between now and 2019…” 

So many of the words he had written made no sense. Names of people who weren’t born yet and genres of music that sounded so alien. 

  

When Stefan’s decor changed from Bandersnatch to the inner workings of the years to comes, his dad hadn’t even noticed.  _ ‘Get rid of that rubbish, Stefan,’ _ he had said.  _ ‘You’re done with the game, aren’t you?’ _

But he had to work on other games. New games. Because it was his job to make games now.

Thakur had said that he had a two months to come to him with a new, fleshed out concept. And February was approaching painfully fast.

Stefan looked up, but the screen remained black.

He scratched the back of neck, face going red.

“And I was thinking that maybe you could help. I-I mean, this is all your life.” his arms waved around the room. “So I, uh, feel like you deserve credit for that. I could even put your name on the-”

_ No. _

His shoulders fell.

“No,” he whispered to himself. “No, of course not.”

Stefan had learned so much about the future. And so little about the person who was controlling his future.

He didn’t know their name, what they looked like. Hell, he didn’t even know if he was talking to a man or a woman or a child or a fucking cyborg.

He knew nothing.

The paper in his hands suddenly felt a lot less important that it had a minute ago. 

“Sorry that I even asked.”

_ You can make the game. Without me. _

Stefan nodded, toeing off his sneakers. He was so fucking tired all of a sudden. He couldn’t help but chuckle to himself.

“So,” he called up to the ceiling, “do I take a nap or do I call Colin? C’mon, your choice.” 

Ten seconds later, he was on the phone.

He could hear Pearl scream and cry in the background. Stefan hated kids. At the moment he hated a whole lot of things.

“Sorry mate, one second,” Colin had mumbled, clearly talking around a joint. There was some shuffling and a shout for Kitty and a door closing and then things were quiet.

“Okay, I’m back. Pearl has decided that colouring is no longer fun with me but the second she hears Mum walking into the room…” he trailed off, letting the two sit in the silence for a moment.

“I’m thinking of moving out. Renting a place.”  _ Wait _ , wait, no he wasn’t. 

He….

He wasn’t making this choice. 

Colin hummed in a mixture of surprise and approval. He clearly wasn’t expecting that.

“Really? You want to move out?”

Stefan scrunched his face up. He had never thought about it. He had the money to start paying rent of some sort but…

“Is this you saying this?,” Colin questioned, “Or...someone else?”

“Not me,” Stefan answered. “I don’t know what that was about. I didn’t even want to call you...Not that I don’t want to talk to you but...y'know.”

Of course Colin knew. Kitty and Colin knew a lot more that Stefan ever thought they would. Sometimes he questioned whether they were ever human. Maybe they were from the 21st century and had ended up here.

It wouldn’t even be the weirdest thing to discover. 

Colin sat in thought, his silence let Stefan hear Pearl’s happy gurgling. 

“Have you tried to kill your dad lately?” Colin’s question came off nonchalant. This was something they talked about a lot now. 

Stefan’s urge to kill his dad.

Stefan’s recurring dreams.

The person from the future that had been controlling Stefan’s life and being the leading cause of those things.

They were the only people who didn’t find him crazy.

Stefan had promised not to tell anyone about it, he was told that every other time it ended badly. But Colin just  _ knew. _

“Not really. I don’t think. He pissed me off the other day, said I should should start dating and stuff.” It wasn’t the first time his dad and brought shit like that up. His dad had always been on his case about things around that subject. Stefan had worked out a few years ago, when he turned Melissa Walkings down for the Year 11 Formal, just how afraid he was that his son was a homo.

“Maybe that’s where the thing about moving out came from,” he added.

“I’d offer a place to stay but it depends on how you feel about babies. And me and Kitty, y’know, having sex. It’s a one bedroom.”

Colin had let Stefan stay over a few times over the past few months. Not much ever happened, either Colin or Kitty would drop acid and the other would watch the baby and Stefan would do his best to clear his head. 

He’d always come back when his dad called, frantic and angry, the next morning though.

Maybe he did need to start renting somewhere.

“Anyway,” Stefan blurted out, trying to distract himself, “I think I have an idea for my next game. I’m thinking of bringing it to Thakur on Wednesday.”

“What’s it about?” When Colin spoke, Stefan could hear the crackle of him exhaling his smoke.

“Time travel. It’s set in the future but there’s a simulation that can send people’s subconscious to the present. Well, uh, their past I guess. But I’m thinking you can choose between two characters and they both play through the story differently. No multiple endings, but different game play.”

“Nice,” Colin said, seemingly to himself. “I don’t remember you ever telling me stuff like that, I think this is a new one.”

Thank God.

The two talked for a few minutes more, until Stefan heard the jingle of his dad's keys and decided to hang up.

He decided that.

Stefan sat himself down in front of the television, ignoring his dad complaining about ‘the state of this kitchen, Stefan’ and looked up to the roof. 

“I deserve to know who you are,” he whispered. “You’re a part of me now, you know everything about me. About my friends. About my family. Please, I just want to know your name. Can you tell me your name?”

And even though Stefan couldn’t see his computer screen, he knew what it said.

_ No. _


End file.
